Pure PlayStation

Review: 2MD VR Football – PS4/PSVR

If 2MD VR Football, from developer Truant Pixel, teaches us anything, it’s that we were right all this time. If only our high school coach would have put us in the game, we would have gone all the way to the state championship. It’s 2MD VR Football for the PlayStation VR, and you just became the quarterback of your favorite team, minus the giant stacks of straight cash and super-model wife. To clear up any confusion, I’m talking American football here. All four of your extremities are allowed here.

Sadly, it’s not full-fledged football the likes of Madden. Instead, it focuses on one of the most exciting aspects of my country’s favorite sport: The two-minute drill. If you’re new to football, the two-minute drill is this: There are two minutes left in the game, and your team is down by six. As the quarterback of your team, you’ll need to call the plays and manage the clock as you matriculate the ball down the field for the winning touchdown. You don’t run the ball when your receiver makes a catch. You don’t play defense and there are no special teams. You simply throw the ball to the open man, call a new play and repeat. There is a practice mode that sees you throw unlimited footballs through rings, but as far as actual on-field gameplay, the two-minute drill is all there is.

Obviously, this game will live and die by how well the Move controllers can handle the motion of throwing the ball. And believe it or not, the much-embattled Move controllers hit it out of the park. Mixed metaphors aside, the tracking from these PS3 era controllers work better in 2MD VR Football than in any game I’ve played before. The accuracy in which you can place the football is awesome. The throwing motion is stupidly simple, as it should be. You hold the football by holding down the trigger button on whichever hand you want to use. Then you throw the ball with a traditional throwing motion. The only tricky part is you have to release the trigger at just the right time. Release too early and the ball will sail on you. Release too late and the ball will bounce off the turf well before it gets to its target. But the best news is that the ball seems to always head in the direction you intend it to. If you’ve played any VR games where you have to throw things, then you know how wildly erratic that has always been. It turns out, it didn’t need to be that way, and 2MD VR Football proves that.

Game Info:

Developer: Truant Pixel

Release Date: May 8th, 2018

Price: $12.99

Another really cool feature is you can draw your own plays. You have eight different plays (the four face buttons on each Move controller) that you can pull up on the greaseboard in the locker room. Simply touch any of the receivers on the board and their intended route will disappear. Then grab the sharpie and draw a new route. Whatever the hell you want him to do. You can change every route on every play. Create your own damn offense if you think you’re so smart.

It’s basically the armchair football fan’s wet dream. Every Sunday you watch your favorite team’s quarterback make a terrible throw, or the head coach calls a stupid play, causing you to scream at your TV, wondering how guys who make so much money could be so terrible. Now, you can be that terrible player/coach that causes your team to lose! Some dreams do come true.

My one glaring negative was that the voice command didn’t seem to work. You were supposed to be able to press down the Move button on the right controller and call out your play. I couldn’t get it to work at all until I discovered the key. Apparently, if you release the Move button immediately after you call the play, it works most of the time. Scanning the defense and screaming “cross right” (X button on the right controller), or “brick left” (square button on the left Move controller) really ratchets up the immersion to max levels. Hopefully, Truant Pixel will address the voice commands in a future patch. Adding in custom calls to snap the ball would also be pretty amazing.

I love American football to an embarrassingly large degree and 2MD VR Football seems like it was made just for me, so keep that in mind in relation to my score. I didn’t expect much from 2MD VR Football, But it delivered for me in a big way. There isn’t much variety here, and I suspect non-football fans would wonder what the fuss is about, but for me, the depth in which you can take your playbook and the feeling of standing in the pocket while the defense collapses on you before delivering that perfect pass is pretty great. For $12 you can channel your inner Tom Brady without the designer Ugg boots and the pea coat. 2MD VR Football is worth a look for everyone and an obvious no-brainer for football fans everywhere.

2MD VR Football PSVR Review

8.5/10

Overall - Fantastic - 8.5/10

8.5/10

Summary

2MD VR Football puts you behind center in the one of the most exciting aspects of American sports, the two-minute drill. The players are little more than tackling dummies and aside from practice, the only mode you’ll find is a tournament of 2 minute drill’s that gets a little more difficult as you advance. Despite this simplicity, the act of drawing up your own plays, calling them out at the line of scrimmage, and the near flawless implementation of the Move controllers makes this an absolute must buy for the PSVR sports fan.

Review Disclaimer: This review was carried out using a copy of the game bought at the expense of the reviewer. For more information, please read our Review Policy.